The New York Times reports: Syrian troops continued their drive on Saturday to retake rebel strongholds, even as there were indications that diplomatic efforts to end the violence could still prove elusive just days after Western officials had claimed a breakthrough.
Those officials had been encouraged by a United Nations vote last week in which Russia and China, after previously blocking Security Council action on Syria, joined a statement supporting an attempt to broker a cease-fire.
But on Saturday — a day before scheduled talks in Moscow with a United Nations envoy — a senior Kremlin adviser indicated that Russia continues to have a sharply different view than the United States and other Western countries, placing the main burden to stop the fighting on opposition forces, rather than the Syrian government.
This from Eric Margolis:
Washington’s key objective in Syria is to overthrow the Asad regime in order to injure its closest ally, Iran. There is so much anti-Iranian hysteria now in the US, that any blow against the Islamic republic is seen as good. Former US fears of a chaotic, post-Asad Syria are now forgotten in the rush to undermine Iran, by destabilizing Syria. Republicans, led by Sen. John McCain, are baying for war against Syria as President Barak Obama tries to hold back the war hawks.
Israel, whose influence in Washington in this election year is unprecedented, is stoking war fever against Syria and Iran. Israel is delighted that the crises with both nations have eclipsed the issue of Palestine and of Syria’s Golan Heights, which were illegally annexed by Israel in 1981. Golan supplies on third of Israel’s total water. Israel’s objective is to see Syria splintered into feuding cantons like today’s Iraq.
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/03/25-4